I have seen fellow students get VERY upset because they did not get a stripe I have even been told people have left and joined another academies because they were surpassed stripe wise STRIPES are more than bit of tape to alot of people lol.

My own opinion is that they are quite valuable at white belt for showing progress (and therefore giving motivation) during what is possibly the most difficult period of your bjj life (and probably the point at which people are most likely to give up). From blue on I think it matters less in terms of motivation.

The best advice I have seen/heard is to just train, and let the belts/stripes/whatever take care of themselves. This is clearly quite challenging for most people, with human nature being what it is. I started bjj quite a while ago, and due to stopping training for very long periods of time, I have seen people I used to tap when we were both white belts becoming purple belts while I remained at white.

But while that used to bother me, eventually you realise there's no point in worrying about it, and recognition of your progress (from your instructors) will come.

Having said all that, I was still well chuffed and proud to get my blue from Wilson, Dickie and Simon

In an academy with a lot of white belts the stripe system is of great help to the instructor. It allows you to monitor the students progress much more accurately in terms of marking steps towards a blue belt. If everyone had a straight white belt it would be much harder to work out.

I see stripes on white belts as an indicator of progress along these lines.

1 stripe- you have a basic idea of what's going on, trousers no longer on back to front, belt tied correctly, can do a breakfall , rolling and from a throw, basic understanding of positions and subs, able to roll without excessive spazzing.
2 stripe- starting to do some jiu-jitsu, able to hold and escape a dominant position and do some submissions.
3 stripe- doing some nice jiu-jitsu, starting to develop a few positions to a reasonable level eg hitting loads of triangle, having a good couple of sweeps and definitely starting to show good movement eg good hip escape and guard replacement.
4 stripe- I don't generally give 4, once you're a 3 stripe white belt you can deal with almost all beginners and give trouble to blues on a good day. You shouldn't need more motivation at this stage of training.

All just a very rough guide and my own opinion and bear in mind that stripes don't mean that much at all compared to a blue belt.